They say all roads lead to Rome, but for Laila Al Habash, pursuing a music career meant taking a road away from Rome.

In Milan, she found her voice as a songwriter, but her influences run deeper. Al Habash draws on both her mother’s Italian side of the family and her father’s Palestinian heritage.

In 2024, Al Habash released an EP called Long Story Short, and she is getting ready to release a new album called Tempo.

In today’s session, you’ll hear her play songs from both of those projects in a performance recorded in front of a World Cafe audience at Rome’s Studio 33.

This episode of World Cafe was produced and edited by Kimberly Junod. The web story was created by Miguel Perez. Our engineer is Chris Williams. Our programming and booking coordinator is Chelsea Johnson and our line producer is Will Loftus.